Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Early Morning Internal Conversation

I went to bed really early last night, and as a consequence woke up really early this morning. That wasn't actually the plan; the plan was to go to bed really early and sleep for a long, long time.
Because I had the flu last week - and have been dealing with some lingering effects - it had been more than a week since I'd gotten up early and did my time on the elliptical machine. On Monday and Tuesday of this week I'd "slept in" until the point at which under what had recently been normal circumstances I would just be finishing up with my workout and getting into the shower.
In any case, today I woke up about an hour earlier than I do when I am hitting the elliptical (which puts it just shy of two hours earlier than when I've been getting up this week).
Having time to kill, I thought, "Maybe I should try to get back into the swing of things."
This notion sparked an internal debate between the three of me.*

Me: Well, it's been over a week. I probably really should do it.
Also Me: Meh.
Me3: Yes, you should!
Also Me: But I feel pretty stiff and sore.
Me: Maybe getting moving will loosen me up a little and I'll actually feel better.
Me3: Well, you'll certainly feel better about yourself!
Me and Also Me: Shut the fuck up!

Ultimately, Me and Me3 - despite the fact that Me agrees with Also Me that Me3 is a little goody two-shoes nerd - won out, and so the three of me got onto the elliptical machine and promptly totally overdid it.
Put in over an hour and burned more than 800 calories. We were pretty well wiped out after that.

*There are at least three versions of myself kicking around in my head. There are more, but they aren't as outspoken as the main three, and sometimes their existence is fleeting. I suppose that in terms of their characteristics they map reasonably well to the Id, Ego, and Superego.
They don't really seem to like each other very much, and there's a very thin and brittle veneer of civility that exists between them, though sometimes two of them will form uneasy alliances with each other against the third.
It's worth noting, as can be seen above, that the pronoun by which I refer to myself in these internal exhcanges often varies. Sometimes it's "I" or "me," other times it's "you," and still other times - usually on those rare occasions when there is consensus - it will be "we" or "us." It's also worth noting that I'm totally not kidding. I really do have these kinds of exchanges with myself. Sometimes out loud.

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